The World Cup will commence next week and in the past two articles I have dealt with, directly or indirectly, the referees in this highly rated football tournament which is followed by millions around our continent.

After assessing the structure of the whole 22-man strong group of referees to be utilised during the month of competition in the first article, I then – a week later – also dealt with the rigid instructions that were issued by FIFA to limit and, if possible, eliminate certain happenings which can ruin the same FIFA’s aim of having air play on the pitch of play.

One of the main pressures that will be faced by the referees, whose decisions can ultimately swing the outcome of any game and thus influence the whole tournament itself, during the World Cup (if one takes into consideration the latest guidelines issued by FIFA) is that they have to get tough on any diving attempts by players.

It is no secret that the pressure increases greatly with football, like all the world major sports, becoming a multi-million Euro/dollar business and with dozens of television cameras watching the referees’ every move. As a consequence referees and their teams are constantly finding themselves in the firing line of the major media and corresponding analysts and commentators.

In the last month, BBC carried out a sort of survey with top referees where the latter were asked for their views as regards the new FIFA ‘diving’ policy.

Norwegian referee Terje Hauge, who refereed the UEFA Champions League final between Barcelona and Arsenal but who will be missing from the World Cup Finals, believes that diving is “the biggest problem in football”. In fact, Hauge told the BBC World Service’s World Football programme: “You can only see the situation once and you must be lucky as a referee to be in the correct position. If you are not in the correct position you must smell it out.”

Top Russian match official Valantin Ivanov, who is among the list of 22 referees chosen by FIFA, last March, to officiate in Germany as from next week, also argues that the position of the referee is crucial to making a decision when faced with a diving incident. Ivanov was reported as saying, “sometimes it is a real problem because some players are so good at this (diving). Most of the time the problem occurs due to the position of the referee at the time of the incident. You need to be in a very good position close to the situation and, yet, sometimes the game is so fast that it is still very difficult to get in a good position.”

The experienced South African referee Jerome Damon claims that although referees are aware of certain players with a reputation for diving during a game, the same referees do not go into the match with any pre-conceptions. Damon argued: “One is certainly aware of a player’s reputation but one does not really want to be vindictive in any way or be pre-emptive in any way. You call the game as you see it. That for me has been a crucial part of my refereeing, I call what I see. What I don’t see I cannot call and I live with it.”

In last week’s article I also mentioned that FIFA has adopted a team policy for the referee team where the trio of officials are, where possible, from the same country, or from the same continent. This was done, presumably, to have more consistency between the same team of officials.

FIFA also adopted a tight policy of a sort of ‘all for one, one for all’. In fact, as written also last week, two referees Greek referee Kyros Vassaras and Spanish referee Manuel Mejuto Gonzalez (who formed part of the original group of 23 chosen refs) have been ruled out of the World Cup because their assistants failed fitness tests.

Despite these unfortunate incident, the general feeling seems to be that being allowed to work with officials from the same country and/or continent is an improvement all the referees seem very enthusiastic about. The latter also hope this will improve the current administration of games (one can surely remember that in the past World Cup 2002, there were a number of protests from certain countries on the performance of certain referees, especially during the knock-out stages).

In the football World Cup, traditionally host nations have done well in the final tournaments and there has been much speculation (whether it is true or not is then a big issue) about the unspoken psychological pressure referees may be under to favour the home side.

This is, however, an idea referees generally firmly reject. On this issue, Jerome Damon commented, “I think the pressure is created by the media and by the expectation of the host nation. But I don’t think any referee goes into a match thinking, ‘Oh this is the host nation. We’d better be on our toes. There are definitely no special favours and the calibre of match officials that you have in Germany 2006 will referee a match just like any other game.”

Being a referee I fully subscribe to this idea. My honest belief is that a true honest referee will never succumb to home team pressure and consequently referee in a ‘homer’ fashion. A top and serious referee will not be fearful to make tough calls, if the situation merits it, against the home team as the same referee must oversee that the rules are adhered to and no bias is to be shown on the field of play.